


Almost Human

by laughablyunimportant



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Cannibalism, Gen, POV First Person, Slaughterhouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-20
Updated: 2012-11-20
Packaged: 2018-06-04 16:29:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6665965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughablyunimportant/pseuds/laughablyunimportant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave's been working at the troll slaughterhouse for four months now. A decent job. Good wages. Not too hard. It's not getting to him or anything. Definitely. It's totally, 100% fine and not creeping him the fuck out at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Human

Sometimes, if you look right at them, right in their eyes, right before they go up on the block? Sometimes they almost look human. Then the blade comes down, and blue or brown or yellow spews everywhere, and they're nothing like human at all. 

There was this one they were leading up, last week I think? Strong fucker, tried to break out of the chute, put a dent in the metal and shut down the whole operation for a day. Anyway, this bull, he's probably six foot seven, easy, shoulders brushing either side of the chute without even trying, blue sweat dripping down his face, he's going down calm as can be—they're always pretty calm in the slime, shit's a bitch to aerosolize, but definitely worth it—anyway, this big bull, he's plodding down the chute like nothing's wrong, lucky fuck doesn't know he's about to die, and then, out of nowhere, starts flipping his shit, bucking in the chute, breaking things apart and hollerin up a storm like someone jammed a sparker up his ass and set phasers to dance. We had to shoot him right there, light him up and reduce that prime grade piece to nothing but pig slop, him and two others that got caught in the fire. But that's not the important part.

Later, when I went back to look over the footage, see what set him off? Couldn't find a thing. Calm and placid one minute, berserker the next. So I look through the other camera feeds, try to find an angle that might tell me something. And there, on camera 4, there's this little trollette, getting slaughtered. 

I remember her from the herd, always pouncing on the other stock, making trouble and shit, was why she got put up so early, instead of pumped full of more hormones in the hopes she'd grow to a decent size. I guess that's why she caught my eye on the feed, but watching green spew meant I missed the blue fucker going buck wild and had to rewind. 

And then I thought…I don't know, sometimes you just do things you don't really think about, you know? So I pull up these two feeds side-by-side, the green trollette and our blue bull, and wouldn't you know it, they lined up, down to the exact _second_. 

I took it down, frame-by-frame, lord knows why. The bull couldn't have seen the trollette, they were in different chutes, different places in line, and besides, trolls don't get bothered by the sight of other dead trolls. But. These two, right before the trollette bit it, she looks sharp to the right, like someone whistled for her. And the bull looks sharp, too, at the same time. Then green sprays, and he goes berserk.

I pulled up the diagram of the floor, just to be sure. They were looking at eachother. 

I thought about checking the bull, before they processed him. Trollette's already unrecognizable, but I probably could have examined the body before they ground up the big guy for gruel. Don't know what I would have looked for. Markings, scars. Maybe some green blood under his nails. Something to connect the two of them. 

But I was off the clock. So I just went home instead.


End file.
